


Not a Chance

by snark_sniper



Series: Love Is Strong Enough [formerly "unnamed soulmate AU collection"] [2]
Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, M/M, Nobility, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates, hongice could still be platonic or romantic, it's just that they find each other pretty cute, merchants, soulmate!AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-23
Updated: 2015-10-23
Packaged: 2018-04-27 17:33:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5057590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snark_sniper/pseuds/snark_sniper
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I’m boarding the ship.”</p><p>“You really shouldn’t. We’ve only just met. You might like me.”</p><p>“I’m not so sure about that.”</p><p>[A sequel to Not With Haste]</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not a Chance

**Author's Note:**

> I swore to everybody that Not With Haste would be all. And then after answering so many reviews noting the tiny bit of HongIce at the end - well, the first line popped into my head, and then the next. I hate you all. (Not really - it was fun to write.)
> 
> To those of you new to the party: I strongly recommend reading the first story, Not With Haste, for a bit of background on my particular soulmate!AU and what the Nordics have been up to.

“Don’t even think about it.”

“But baby, I—”

“I am _not_ your baby.”

“I just want to sit at your table.”

“You’re doing perfectly well at your own table.”

“It doesn’t have you at it.”

Emil doesn’t know how to reply to this. Nobility spars with words, true, but they spar with subtle accusations of inferiority. This merchant—his _soulmate_ , he thinks with a scowl, as if spitting the words in his mind will make the idea go away—spars with flirtations and unending gazes and that subtly cocked head that makes him look both curious and attract—no, _no._

Emil doesn’t believe in love at first sight. What happened with Mathias and Lukas was some sort of delirium, he’s sure of it. Lukas was shaky after having openly defied their father, and Mathias was just crazy in general, if he hadn’t knocked himself in the head diving into the harbor to save Emil seven years ago. Now Emil feels as if he’s just resurfacing from a horrible, unexpected shock, only the person retrieving him is not an overly smiling blond with mussed hair and freckles. It’s this foreigner.

His _soulmate_.

The merchant slips out of his chair and sits across from Emil with only the scuff of wood against the floor to indicate he’s moved at all. He places his cup of tea next to Emil’s flagon and one foot next to Emil’s crossed and extended legs.

“You thought about it,” Emil accuses.

“I _did_ it.” The foreigner shows no remorse.

“Get your foot away from mine.”

“I thought nobility was supposed to be nicer?”

“ _Please._ ”

“And you’re being so standoffish because…?”

The foreigner looks at him expectantly. Emil doesn’t know what he’s expecting. Some confession of hidden attraction? An attestation that Emil has been waiting so long for this moment? A kiss? Lukas and Mathias kissed. Emil doesn’t want to.

It’s not that the foreigner isn’t handsome, he supposes. Lithe but well-built, maybe a little shorter than him if they were both to stand. He takes care of his hair and skin and smells vaguely like wood and smoke and eastern perfume.

It’s the _idea_ of him. The fact that Emil had to learn Cantonese, that his father sent him to so many merchants and hired him so many tutors on language and culture and business and everything else to prepare him for this one moment. The assumption that the person sitting in front of him is going to whisk Emil away to a different world, that the foreigner already has a claim on him just by catching his gaze in a tavern.

“Your ship leaves soon, doesn’t it?” Emil asks. This tavern is seaside for a reason.

“Just arrived.” The foreigner brushes the comment off easily. “I thought I’d take in my surroundings. Glad I did.”

“Don’t be.”

“And why’s that?”

“My ship leaves soon.”

This makes the foreigner pause. He’s not stilled with fear, like Lukas would be, and his expression isn’t falling, like Mathias’s would. He would probably never chatter like Tino, nor stare at him like Berwald does. Emil knows that Berwald is staring into space half of the time. The foreigner, in contrast, is staring _at him_ , and it’s nothing Emil is familiar with. The nobility stare through him, the commoners stare past him, and his brother and his friends stare with him. Emil isn’t used to being so scrutinized, and though he refuses to think too much about it, he wants to know what the foreigner is finding that makes him not only keep staring, but come closer to do so.

“Don’t board it, then.”

The foreigner says this like it’s easy, like it’s an option.

“I’m boarding the ship.”

“You really shouldn’t. We’ve only just met. You might like me.”

“I’m not so sure about that.”

“You wound me.” This is said with a little more playfulness than Emil is used to, but still with a deadpan expression. There’s something underneath that façade, Emil knows it. “We don’t even know each other’s names.”

“I’m nobility, and you’re a merchant. The list of names in either category isn’t very long.”

“So save me some time. And a surname.” The foreigner holds out his hand. “I’m Kaoru.”

Emil eyes the hand. It’s his turn to stare, to figure out what’s behind this. He has to admit, though, that the foreigner hasn’t petitioned for anything beyond a name and a seat. And to derail his plans and possibly his life.

Against his better judgment, Emil takes the hand. It’s purely for politeness. “Lord Emil Bondevik. And I’m still boarding that ship.”

“Oh? Going to meet your other soulmate?”

Emil scowls. “My brother, and his.”

Something in the foreigner’s—Kaoru’s, he supposes—eyes lighten. Emil notices. “Who did you think I was meeting?”

Kaoru has been propping himself on the table with his elbows, but now his hands reach to wrap around his teacup. “I don’t know. Maybe it was another merchant. Or a first. Or something.”

Emil raises his eyebrow. “A first?”

Kaoru pauses, as if looking for the right words. “With nobility,” he concludes, “at least in Hong Kong, sometimes people take a first. Just to practice.”

“Practice—oh.” Emil doesn’t know why that makes him flush slightly. He’s no stranger to how soulmates act once they get comfortable with each other; from the way Berwald grunts at Mathias sometimes, Mathias and Lukas are quite vocal about their own comfort. It’s seen here as a sign of fidelity to be inexperienced, though. To do everything new with the one you’re meant to do it with.

“And with merchants?” Emil asks.

Kaoru shrugs. “Whatever we want, I guess.”

Emil doesn’t dig deeper. He’s hung up on the idea that Kaoru thinks Emil might have had a first. That he thought at all about Emil before they met. Emil has his own preconceptions about soulmates, but mostly about what one would mean to his life. He doesn’t think about personality traits much. He wonders if Kaoru thinks the same.

“What did you think I would be like?” Emil asks.

Kaoru goes back to staring at him more intensely, and Emil wishes he hadn’t asked this question.

“I thought you’d be a brunet,” Kaoru concludes. “And that you’d have a better choice in drinks.”

Emil hardly feels defensive about his choice of ale. The only reason he drinks at all is because the older, more experienced nobles do, and he needs to build his tolerance up so he can talk them down at social events, when they’re a little too inebriated to remember their prejudices against literate commoners. Personally, he doesn’t enjoy the taste.

“I also thought you’d try to greet me in my language,” Kaoru continues.

This, Emil rankles at. “I’ve had enough practice in your language.”

“Oh?” Kaoru takes a sip.

“My father sent me to all kinds of tutors to learn your language. And other merchants, too.”

“Was one of them a Wang Yao?”

“Who—you mean Yao Wang?”

“Sure.”

Emil racks his brain. That was somewhere between one and two years before Lukas and Mathias met, back when Lukas was the one to become lord and their father was pursuing Emil’s merchant destiny with more fervor. “Long hair. Smelled like flowers.”

“Jasmine. He’s really proud of that. He’s my uncle.”

“Ah.”

“And when my parents found my words, they begged him to take me along.”

“You’re telling me we could have met earlier?”

“I refused to go.”

This is new. Emil looks at him with more interest. “Why?”

“I didn’t want to speak your language any more than you want to speak mine.”

“But here we are.”

“But here we are.” Kaoru takes another sip of his tea.

“…So what changed?”

Kaoru waves his hand around. “You don’t see this in Hong Kong. After a while, I got tired of seeing the same things. Talking to the same people. And the money really, really didn’t hurt.”

Emil gets the idea that the money is in fact the main factor. “So you speak my language so well because you’re trying to earn more.”

“Nobody buys from a guy who can barely pronounce properly.”

Emil’s tutors have drilled into him the importance of good diction. He doubted it in his childhood, but as he assumed the family title and began to conduct his own affairs, he found himself increasingly in alignment with their views. And this he had to achieve in his own language. Kaoru’s language, to him, is rusty and clunky and used only to entertain the lower-rank nobles for a sentence or two before the topic moves to matters closer to home. Emil can’t help but admire Kaoru a bit for his perseverance and logic. Even if the motive leaves a little to be desired.

“Why here, then?” Emil asks.

“Yao’s old business partner, Arthur Kirkland, has control of the port. They had a falling out, but he was fond of me, so he lets Yao continue business here on the condition that I come instead.”

Emil nods.

“But I think money probably doesn’t interest you.”

Emil pauses, then nods again.

“I mean, you’re noble, so of course it doesn’t. But you don’t look interested. So tell me,” Kaoru asks with a raised eyebrow, “what do you do with the family fortune if you’re not building it?”

This is a question that Emil’s father would ask. His comfort levels drop slightly. “I run charities,” he responds curtly.

“Hm?”

“For commoners.”

“Hm.”

“Who can’t read.”

This catches Kaoru’s interest. “I thought that was illegal here.”

“I’m working to change that.”

“You must not be very popular with your parents.” But then Kaoru catches himself. Emil did introduce himself as _lord_. “Or with the other nobles.”

“Not really. But it’s the least I can do.”

“Is that all you do?”

“Well, I visit my brother.”

“And?”

“I, uh, do the family finances. And walk in the garden.”

“And?”

“…That’s all.”

Kaoru looks at him oddly. “You don’t get tired of”—he gestures in the air again—“all this?”

Emil has a sinking feeling that they’re getting to the heart of something. “No. Not really.”

Kaoru looks at Emil. “Maybe you just haven’t seen anything that could change your mind.”

Emil bristles. Now he’s remembering why he doesn’t like the idea of Kaoru. Of _soulmates_. “Nor do I really want to, thank you. I’m happy, Kaoru,” he says, and he really means it. Means it maybe a little too much.

“Well, I’m happy with my trade, _Emil_ ,” says Kaoru.

“Good.”

“You’re not even tired of the other nobles?”

“Not a bit.”

“I don’t believe you.”

Emil can’t blame him. He is lying a little—he doesn’t like the company his life provides, per se—but he does like his life.

“Why are we soulmates?” Emil asks. For the first time, he sees Kaoru’s mouth open a little in surprise.

“What do you mean?”

“Well…” Oh, great, and now he’s back to speaking indecisively, imperfectly, like when he was a kid and Lukas was there to cover for his inadequacies as a Bondevik. “It’s obvious you’re happy. And I’m happy, mostly. And two different things make us happy.”

“…That’s a good way to put it. Mostly happy.”

“But you were just saying…”

“Money is good, yes. And I like doing business. I’m getting good at it. But do you think Yao cares? I’m there as a favor to his sister, and he likes that I make the business grow, and he’s pretty caring. But he doesn’t _care_.”

Emil is a little taken aback. Does Kaoru think Emil is going to care? He could, maybe, with time. He just doesn’t want to right _now_. He doesn’t know how. He doesn’t want that pressure.

“So then,” Kaoru continues, “I have words to look at when I’m trying to sleep on the ship, even if the words are just ‘oh no’. And I know that nothing’s really _wrong_ with my life, but then sometimes I think that maybe there’s nothing missing, but there’s something that could be there.”

“Like somebody to tell things to.”

“Yeah. Or somebody to buy things for.”

Emil makes a face.

“Or, you know, something.”

Emil can’t help but feel a little bad. He’s never felt lonely, exactly, but he does know that there’s time in his day that could go to something else, if he didn’t busy himself with things that he could technically delegate. Tending the garden, for instance, or doing the household’s finances. There’s a certain silence in the house, and while he likes silence, he doesn’t like emptiness.

And it appears Kaoru feels something similar. Yes, at first he tries to go down the path that Emil has feared for nearly his whole life. The path of distraction, of diversion from everything Emil has worked so hard to build. But then he backs away. And he exposes a spot that Emil has been ignoring, has been considering as just another part of his armor. It turns out to be a chink.

Damn it.

“If you come with me,” Emil says, “you can see how loud it gets in my life.”

Something like a smirk crosses Kaoru’s lips. “Oh?”

“I mean it. My brother normally doesn’t say much, but he always has something to say around Mathias, even if it’s just telling him to be quiet. And Tino is always talking to me or Berwald or Mathias, and don’t even get me started about Mathias himself—”

“That sounds nice.”

Emil blinks.

“Reminds me of home, actually. Yong Soo always trying to get Yao’s attention, Mei and Lien always giggling about something. No wonder Kiku went away to study. It’s chaos.”

“I guess you’re pretty familiar with it, then.”

“Oh yeah. But I bet your sort of chaos is interesting.”

“It’s…a nice change, sometimes.”

Kaoru snorts. “Yeah, I bet.” He gets up, holding up his empty tea cup as proof that he needs a refill. He starts to stretch and step towards the counter, but stops somewhere between those two actions. He looks down at Emil.

“I’m not going to take you away, you know.”

Emil doesn’t think he was that obvious about his fears. He hopes the weight taken off of his shoulders doesn’t show in his straightened posture.

“And I’m not going to make you stay.”

They stare each other down for a second, daring one another to take it back. Then—and _oh_ , suddenly being soulmates makes a little more sense—Kaoru outright grins.

“You might change your mind later, you know.” Kaoru croons. As he walks past Emil, he brushes a light hand over Emil’s shoulder. “I’ll persuade you eventually.”

Emil flushes bright red. When he turns, he sees Kaoru already drawing the pubkeeper’s attention and holding out his empty cup.

“Don’t count on it!” Emil barks. He can feel Kaoru’s smug cackle from halfway across the tavern and settles himself down, somehow knowing that the next drink is going to be on his soulmate.


End file.
